In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.

A rock set among the shells. Derwent foreshore, Bellerive Boardwalk. January 2012.

A very special Theme Thursday today, and all that I am seeking is a little BALANCE.

It's Australia Day you see, and I hate Australia Day. Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Australia (some of my best friends are Australians!), I hate Australia Day.

I hate the dickheads who shout AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE all day. I hate the pissed dickeads. I hate the dickheads decked out in Australian flag thongs, Australian flag shorts, Australian flag singlets, Australian flag hats waving little Australian flags.

In the course of my lifetime Australians have gone from taking pride in their wry snub of ostentatious hubris and wrapping oneself in bits of cloth representing an empty symbolism to the kind of moronic culture that fuses heavy drinking, wrapping oneself in bits of cloth representing an empty symbolism and the kind of macho aggressive xenophobic posturing that has always been present but we once had the good sense to be ashamed of.

There's no BALANCE you see. You're either with Australia Day or against Australia Day. There's little scope for sombre reflection when the beer is flowing and the flags are being thrust in your face.

There's little awareness among the mobs of Southern Cross-bedecked dickheads of why the date itself might just be an ill-chosen one. They struggle with the idea that it is intrinsically offensive to Aboriginal Australians. They miss the fact that our 'National day' ultimately celebrates the founding of a single state. There's no head scratching at the celebration of an event that represents Britain's cruel dumping of her non-citizens in chains in a deeply foreign and hostile land on the other side of the world.

I could go into why I blame the bicentennial (I won't). I could blame John Howard (I do). The saddest thing is that you probably think you look like this, but all that I can see is this.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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